Monday, August 29, 2011

I am extremely eclectic... and it is hard for me to make decisions on overall style in my home since I love just about every style and it is hard to have them all in one space and make it look cohesive. I also get bored easily and need instant changes, most of the time on a whim. So when I consider decoration in my house, it needs to be versatile and "modular". Other than paint color, I try to not make anything even semi-permanent in the space that it is in because chances are, it will get moved in the not-too-distant future. Considering that and the semi-permanent changes that need to be made that I can't commit to, things in my house tend to look pretty disheveled fairly regularly. So instead of embarrassing myself by giving you a virtual home tour, I decided to give you a "close up" tour. Room by room I will take closeups of individual pieces and small areas of the space to give you an idea of what it looks like and what my "style" tends to steer toward.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

I used to have a basic utilitarian lace bag that I would wash my delicates in. It was a bag that my mom bought a long time ago that I ended up stealing from her when I was in high school. :-) I never really thought about how necessary it was until it broke. The zipper broke and I actually had to cut it open to get my laundry out. That happened 2 or 3 years ago and I have had to purchase delicate items more frequently since. I was in need of another bag and I saw a really cute lingerie bag pattern in this book:

So I made it. It turned out o.k.... but when I went to use it, it was completely non-functional. The opening at the top was closed by ties in 3 different places and it left open these large gaps that allowed my delicates to escape in the washer!! So I have now moved 'said' lingerie bag down to the craft room and it is currently holding yarn :-) I don't even think that I took pictures...

A few weeks ago, I got the crochet itch and decided to tackle the lingerie bag again, this time I was just going to make it up as I went along and use leftover yarn that I had laying around the house, which means it was free to make. I decided to make both the front and back out of 9 granny squares each and my initial plan was to make a large flap and have it close "envelope style". BUT my girl, Jess, suggested to make it draw string. Perfect! It worked for the utility of it and it meant much less crocheting that I had to do.

I used mostly organic cottons that I had leftover from baby booties and things that I have made for gifts. They were all in light neutral colors, which was exactly what I needed. And I crocheted all of the granny squares together with a white acrylic yarn. I would have preferred another cotton yarn, but I didn't have any in a light color, so I just went with what I had. It turned out great and the best part is that it is 100% functional. In fact, it is in the dryer right now with all of its contents still intact!!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Monday, August 1, 2011

I have been crocheting pretty much my entire life. My mom crochets, my aunt crochets, my grandma crochets... there was no way I could get out of it :-) So I am constantly crocheting things and I saw a necklace a few years ago that provided me with inspiration to make this necklace:

And ever since these necklaces, I have had this subconscious goal to embellish and accessorize everything with these little crocheted pinwheels. And for those of you who don't crochet, these pinwheels are pretty much the first several foundation rows to pretty much all crochet in the round projects.

So this Saturday I had to work at the shop and teach a class and this was my chosen outfit:

I wore my new dress that I found on the clearance rack at eeeeevil Target for under $20. It is several shades of blue, gray and white. I chose my old owl silver colored necklace to "dress down" my look because if I wore jewelry that was in any way fancy, I looked like I was going to a wedding :-). So the shoes became the dilemma. Like I have said before, I only wear flip flops in the summer... I have these silver high heel flip flops:

But again, too dressy, and much too uncomfortable to be standing on all day! The only other option was my $2.50 black Old Navy flip flops which kinda seemed a little too "dressed down" to be wearing with a dress. So I headed down to my own personal yarn shop (my basement) and picked out 2 different gray yarns and spent 20 minutes crocheting pinwheels that I tied onto the top of my flip flops. Now, in the past decade, there have been some pretty crazy and downright cheesy (completely my opinion) trends for crafty ways to embellish flip flops. My main goals were to embellish mine so that they didn't reflect any of these trends, so that they matched my outfit and so that my embellishments were completely removable so that I don't have to break the bank and buy another pair of black Old Navy flip flops for a whopping $2.50!!! I feel like my goals were met, but you be the judge:

PS: Yes, the second toe on both of my feet are completely crooked and I know that for some people, they may be hard to look at. I feel that they give my feet character and I am so glad I have them!!! They also remind me of my grandma, because she had the exact same toes. :-) Don't lie... you know you are jealous :-) hehe